Midland CPA upsets incumbent Railroad Commission chairman

Published 6:00 pm, Friday, March 5, 2010

While the spotlight was brightest on the governor's race during this week's primary, a former Midlander not only plugged away at his own campaign but pulled off a noteworthy upset.

"I wasn't running a stealth campaign," insisted David Porter, now the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commission, citing mailouts, in-person campaigning and online efforts as part of his campaign. He defeated incumbent Victor Carrillo by more than 20 points in Tuesday's primary. He spent about $50,000 to Carrillo's $300,000 and noted that a majority of his campaign funds came from Midlanders.

"I'm not surprised I won, but I was surprised by the final margin," said Porter, who started his own certified public accounting practice in Midland in 1985. He and his wife now reside near Giddings, though he said he still spends 40 to 50 percent of his time at his Midland office. "I didn't have tons of money, but I worked hard with what I had."

Odessan Kirk Edwards, president of MacLondon Royalties, commented that Carrillo "has done a good job for the oil and gas community, but as much as we in West Texas know about the oil business and what the Railroad Commission actually does, probably 99.9 percent of the rest of the voters in this state knew of neither man running and just cast a ballot for someone they didn't know. The same thing can be seen on the Supreme Court Justices and the close break down of percentages there. No one knew any of those names, either, unless they lived in the same community, as Rick Strange did here in West Texas."

The majority of voters, Edwards noted, went to vote in the governor's race or for their state representative or congressman. "The Railroad Commission race was one of their lower priorities, for sure. It's a sad fact of down-ballot races on a large voter turnout statewide," he concluded.

Doug Robison, president of ExL Petroleum and president-elect of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, agreed with Edwards that the problem with voting for a railroad commissioner is akin to voting for Supreme Court justices.

"I'm sure a lot of folks voted for reasons other than electing a railroad commissioner," he said.

"People don't know who the candidates are and if they have heard the name, they don't know for certain if they're qualified," he continued. "It becomes a game of name recognition."

Carrillo, he said, had done a good job as a railroad commissioner and was well-respected in the oil and gas community.

For his part, Porter disputes contentions, including by Carrillo himself, that voters chose him because of Carrillo's ethnic-sounding surname.

"He won a primary six years ago with the same last name. I don't think he's changed it," Porter said, pointing out that the Republican party has elected other Hispanic candidates, listing Tony Garza and Roy Barrera as examples.

While not of the three railroad commissioners have much name recognition beyond the oil and gas community, said Robison, "I do think Carrillo's Hispanic surname probably had something to do with (his loss), unfortunately and had nothing to do with qualifications."

Bryan Preston, spokesman for the Republican Party of Texas, declined to weigh in on the allegations, saying he considers Carrillo a personal friend.

"He's a good man, David Porter's a good man," Preston said.

Porter said he believes he won for the same reason he entered the race: Carrillo had not made an impact as a railroad commissioner since being appointed by Gov. Perry in 2003.

The idea to run for the commission began last fall, Porter said, when he and several others discussed the need for a new commissioner.

"No one knew the incumbent," he said. "People in Midland and Odessa know Michael (Williams) and some know Elizabeth Ames Jones, but not many knew Victor Carrillo, even in oil towns."

His platform is that energy is "so important to the country and in the Permian Basin it's extremely important. We need energy for our economy, we need jobs for the people." He wants to keep regulation at the state level rather than the federal level, and while he supports alternative energy sources, Porter said he believes oil and natural gas will continue to be the dominant energy source for the coming years. He also said he believes the Railroad Commission has been effective in what it does "but we can always do better."

As he prepares for the November general election, Porter said the biggest problem he sees facing Texas is a pending $14 billion budget deficit.

"We don't need to spend new money that doesn't absolutely need to be spent," he said. "We need to be squeezing our budgets, perhaps even making spending cuts."

He has named former Midlander Barry Williamson, a former member of the Railroad Commission, as his campaign manager and said he will be releasing a number of position papers in the coming months. He faces Democrat Jeff Weems in November.

With the primary concluded, Preston said the state party will do "what we've always done with our primary winners. We'll lock arms with them and support their campaigns. We welcome David to the fold. The campaign is in its infancy, but I expect to hear from David in the coming weeks."

While the governor's race will gather a lot of attention, Preston said, "the Railroad Commission is an incredibly important position in the state. Not a lot of people know what it does but it deals with energy. Texas is the number one energy producer and number one exporter; we power the country, basically. It is a race we will be paying attention to because of the importance of keeping Republicans on the commission. Also it's state race and we haven't lost a state race since 1998 and we're not going to - not on my watch."